We all have stories that make us write. When we’re kids, something grabs us and won’t let go. For crime writers, maybe it’s an unsolved murder that made the moms in our neighborhood lock the doors. Or something quieter, more personal, that makes us question who we are and what we know. My story became…
Balancing the demands of law-enforcement with family isn’t always easy, especially if you’re a single parent. Fortunately, as a former detective for Santa Fe PD and now the newly elected sheriff of Del Sol, New Mexico, I can offer a few dos and don’ts—mostly don’ts—to help you harmonize the two loves of your life. My…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved mysteries. As a child, I owned bookshelves full of mystery novels, and trips to the library would fill my arms with stacks more, which I brought home and promptly devoured. I was drawn to the allure of the unknown and how all the little pieces of…
Despite being the subject of countless romance and literary fiction novels, the City of Light also wields the dark and disturbing ambience for thrillers. Dead end pedestrian streets, loose cobblestone, underground lairs, and mass graves stemming from epidemics offer up the perfect setting for a tense narrative. Get transported to Paris’ atmospheric arrondissements in each…
Kings and queens being hanged, beheaded, and poisoned. It seems Scotland has seen more than its fair share of suspicious regicides. Before I started writing The Stolen Letter, I didn’t know much about Mary, Queen of Scots, but I’ve always held a fascination for the martyred queen. Over the years, of course, I’d picked up…
Early in Before the Fall, Noah Hawley’s 2017 Edgar Award-winner, protagonist Scott Burroughs describes himself as a “disaster survivor in that he had survived the disaster that was his life.” A middle-aged painter and recovering alcoholic, Scott lives on Martha’s Vineyard in a beach shack with a three-legged dog. After years of struggling, his newest…
I’m a podcast junkie. But about five years ago I found my taste shift from true crime podcasts like Someone Knows Something and Serial to psychology and psychotherapy podcasts like Mental Illness Happy Hour and Psychology in Seattle. I’m not sure why this happened; I might have simply grown uneasy about hearing the details of…
Let Me Die in His Footsteps, the 2016 Edgar Award winner written by Lori Roy, had been on my TBR list ever since I first saw the original hardcover jacket. It depicts a young woman in a white dress, lying in a field of vibrant purple lavender. The paperback cover image also features rows and…
Late on the night of May 29, 1997, a talented young musician named Jeff Buckley walked into a tributary channel of the Mississippi River near Memphis, and disappeared. At the time, his star was in the ascendancy—his first album had received widespread acclaim. He was 30 years old, dark-haired and beautiful, with a voice that…
The books you read shape the books you write, and nothing has influenced me more than mysteries, right from the very start. The first books I remember reading—after the Madeline and Winnie-the-Pooh years—were mysteries. Encyclopedia Brown and Jupiter Jones were the gateway adventures leading to Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. I loved them for the…
